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Luan Rama remembers the poet Hamit Aliaj/ Tells how he got to know him and proposed him as an adviser

2024-08-04 17:37:00, Aktualitet CNA

The poet Hamit Aliaj

The analyst and journalist, Luan Rama, commemorated the late poet Hamit Aliaj, on the 70th anniversary of his birth.

Rama says that Hami Ali's life was a journey through storms and he dedicated his poetic work to the Albanians and the homeland.

He tells how he met the poet through his friend Jaho Margjekaj in the fall of 1988.

Also, the writer remembers the time when he served as the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, and invited Hamit Ali to become part of my cabinet as an advisor to the minister.

Full text:

On the 70th anniversary of the poet's birth:

How am I with you Hamit Aliaj?!…

If our Hamit was alive, today he would have called us and gathered us safely in Kasaj in the Gjakova Highlands, and we would have celebrated the 70th anniversary of his birth together.

We would drink and toast. Without it we would sing, we would recite poetry for sure. Although the poet Hamit Aliaj did not like praise, many of the guests would take the floor and talk about him, maybe even about themselves...

But he left unexpectedly when he turned 70 years old.

Analyst and journalist, Luan Rama

Gone and passed away to eternity, with the name that honors the works of the patriotic poet and the life of the Albanian patriots.

Hami Ali's life was a journey through torrents.

He chose to walk that path himself. Not that there was no other choice. They even offered it to him. But he went his own way. Mountains do not choose. They are there, facing the storms.

The poetic work of Ham Ali is a set of values ??dedicated to the Albanian man, the soil and the sky of the homeland on both sides of the border that separated lives, dreams, weddings and graves. Even when he talks about the mountains and rudinas, even when he sings to the oaks of Bjeshke or Valbona, even when the character has a wolf or a bear, the dedication is for man. The man's cult "orders" his poetry.

I first knew him from his poetry. Later, the occasion brought my faculty friend Jaho Margjekaj to meet me with him in Shkodër in the fall of 1988.

It was October. The month of literature. We also talked about poetry, of course. It had been a while since he had published his second book of poems, "I save a word for you" (1986). It wasn't just an event for him. That book came to us 12 years after the first book "Bjeshket is my last name" (1974), it proved the growth and maturity of the poet. Too much authority.

It was not easy at that time to occupy a place with authority at the table of poetry. In a way, the "laws" of the assembly functioned at the table of poetry, as in odes or men's tables where the order was determined by the weight of the word.

The poet Hamit Aliaj

Hamit Aliaj took a place right where honor was given not only to his name and not only to Tropoja, but also to modern poetry written in Albanian. The poetic school of Tropoja, represented by the height of the work of a group of poets distinguished from those three, had Hamit at the head of the country.

The time of freedom gave a different dimension to the creativity of the poet from Kasaj of Gjakova Highlands. He did not run away from the mountains nor avoid their storms to appear "modern". Wisely, the day brought that reality to the modernity of the time without touching the colors, the sizes, the value.

I was lucky to meet him at a difficult time for him. I found it almost ruined. But not delivered. Desperately killed and almost without hope.

Mehmet Elezi has written for a long time about the circumstances and causes of that destruction, which mostly (but not only!) were related to a serious illness that had found a bed in the body of his daughter, Kida, as he affectionately called her , kindness caressed him together.

This is where a person finds himself stuck in life due to causes or circumstances beyond his control. Poets too. They are no exception.

At that time I was able to help him. It has not even been two weeks since I was entrusted with the task of serving as the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, and I invited him to become part of my cabinet as an advisor to the minister.

He was surprised and looked at me in disbelief. Because it happened to him that he was disappointed by other friends of his and much dearer to him than me. For whom he invested with heart and soul as Hamiti knew how to give.

He was also happy. He was very happy. He became so alive that I can still see in his eyes the childlike excitement that his whole face showed.

He had been without a job for years, and suddenly he found himself facing an invitation to be an adviser to the Minister of Culture. (How nice it would be if every minister had an advisor poet!).

We started to solve the problem of the girl's illness together and undoubtedly, there is a great merit in everything that was achieved by the poet Ilirian Zhupa, who at that time served as the Consul General of Albania in Ioannina.

Today, Kida is Hamit's living dream.

But, he did not say that Hamiti would continue and work for a long time. Paradoxically, after 2005, when the Democratic Party came to power, to which he was not only a benefactor but also a contributor, he found himself without a job again!

Disappointment from ingratitude and oblivion hurt Hamit the man, maybe it helped Hamit the poet as much.

He gave himself to poetry with even more spirit and dedication. Even with anger, why not. Driteroi often said that true poetry is born from the anger of revolt, even from anger.

The poet Hamit Aliaj

Mythical and equally earthly, sphindant and challenged by her, he became one with his own poetry, so much so that today we can say without shame that Hamit Aliaj became one of the poets who defended the honor of poetry.

With the poet Hamit Aliaj, the literature written in Albanian today has an anthological height, a height that will always serve as a unique reference of inherent values ??for the relationship of the creator with his work, of the work with time and the poetic universe, of the citizen with his contemporaries and of the future poet, to whom he will always speak from the heights of his name.

In fact, I expected that today, on the 70th anniversary of the birth of the poet Hamit Aliaj, someone, "some minister or deputy", would remember that honoring poets, honoring writers and artists, is more than honoring just their name.

But apparently, they, the "deputies and ministers", have no time for poets.

The great Lagushi said it well once when he was in his Pogradec and when an employee of the Party Committee was sent to the poet by order of the First Secretary, to call him for a coffee, after an ambassador of Albania in one of the countries neighbor who was on vacation in Pogradec wanted to meet him.

And Lasgushi, after listening to the party's envoy, who told him that the First Secretary is waiting for him, replied:

- Thank you, my son, but secretaries come and go, we poets make the homeland!

That's what the great poet said. And the secretary and the ambassador went up to where the poet was, the poet did not come down to them.

Perhaps in Tropoja, and especially among the people of Tropoja, someone will be found to initiate the noble initiative to find a square for a bust of the poet Hamit Aliaj in the city of Bajram Curri. Why not, even a street or a school bear his name.

Tropoja must know how to honor itself with the name of its own son Hamit Aliaj. And not only. There are a lot of great names in that country with whom it may have to know how to honor itself by having them in the eyes of its inhabitants as they actually have them in their hearts. Even Fatima Sokoli can have a bust with her couplet carved with mountain wood.

Hamit Alija is not only from Tropoja. He is a poet of the Albanian world, even though he first forgave the name and life of Tropoja and Malësë i Gjakova.

He has erected a monument to himself with everything he created and left behind as a priceless asset.

- How are you Hamit Aliaj?

- "I am alive,

Alive, far from the king's sea.

Praised be the distances,

Alive, my love,

among stone men

among snowmen... "

Yes, our Hamit said it well.

He is alive.